Financial Markets offering strengthened in Italy

04 May 2018

International law firm Simmons & Simmons has hired Marco Palanca, a partner* who will lead the tax department in Italy.

Marco is a highly experienced tax advisor and qualified chartered accountant who specialises in the taxation of domestic and cross-border M&A and structured finance transactions for corporates and groups with large experience in private equity and private debt. He assists a wide range of clients including international and domestic investment funds, banks and multinational companies in some of the most important and complex deals in the market. Marco joins us from Clifford Chance.

Simone Lucatello also joins the firm’s Italy office as of counsel and specialises in structured finance and securitisation. Simone joins from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and focuses on extraordinary transactions especially NPLs.

These new hires follow the lateral hires of partners Paola Leocani (DCM) and Nicholas Lasagna (Banking & Finance/DCM), together with managing associate Baldassarre Battista and supervising associate Pietro Magnaghi in October 2016, all joining from White & Case.

Romeo Battigaglia, country head of financial markets and financial services group in Italy commented: “These hires are very important and complete our financial markets offering which represents a centre of excellence within the firm globally. Our strategy in tax and structured finance consists in making these practices highly complementary to our areas of focus in the country, so new colleagues will work closely with the Banking & Finance, financial market regulation and DCM teams. Furthermore, the Tax department, due to its across-the-board nature, will work with the Corporate & Commercial, Employment and Dispute Resolution groups, which reflects all the main practices of the firm in Italy.”

Jonathan Hammond, international head of financial markets, added: “Strengthening and consolidating the financial markets practice in Italy is an important step in enhancing our global offer, aligned to the strategy to focus on those areas that are our centres of excellence where the market unanimously recognises us as leaders in these fields.”